North Dakota's Oil Bloom

 

Today I learned about North Dakota's oil bloom, and that this was the major reason the price of Oil went down around the world. As always, the source was wierd, I was watching John Oliver's show on youtube, and ran into this North Dakota rambling episode. A geologist named Mike Johnson recognized a pattern  in the regions rock formation, and this lead to the discovery of the Parshall oil fields. The discovery of the oil field and new vertical drilling technologies has lead to a surplus of oil in the US, which lead them to buy lesser oil internationally, leading to the global dip in oil prices. US is so excited about the whole affairs, they even have a new TV show about the area and oil discovery.

Of course there is a flip side to all this new found drilled out wealth. The new technologies and drill sites popping all over the bakken area is destroying the environment, and affecting local economy and lifestyles. Oliver himself was calling on people to demand better environment management and practices from the oil companies and government.

Feynman's Letter to His Wife

 

 

Richard Feynman was one of the best-known and most influential physicists of his generation. In the 1940s, he played a part in the development of the atomic bomb; in 1986, as a key member of the Rogers Commission, he investigated the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster and identified its cause; in 1965, he and two colleagues were awarded the Nobel Prize “for their fundamental work in quantum electrodynamics, with deep-ploughing consequences for the physics of elementary particles.” He was also an incredibly likeable character, and made countless other advances in his field, the complexities of which I will never be able understand.

In June of 1945, his wife and high-school sweetheart, Arline, passed away after succumbing to tuberculosis. She was 25-years-old. 16 months later, in October of 1946, Richard wrote his late wife a heartbreaking love letter and sealed it in an envelope. It remained unopened until after his death in 1988.

(Source: The Letters of Note book - reproduced with permission of Richard Feynman's Estate.)

October 17, 1946

D’Arline,

I adore you, sweetheart.

I know how much you like to hear that — but I don't only write it because you like it — I write it because it makes me warm all over inside to write it to you.

It is such a terribly long time since I last wrote to you — almost two years but I know you'll excuse me because you understand how I am, stubborn and realistic; and I thought there was no sense to writing.

But now I know my darling wife that it is right to do what I have delayed in doing, and that I have done so much in the past. I want to tell you I love you. I want to love you. I always will love you.

I find it hard to understand in my mind what it means to love you after you are dead — but I still want to comfort and take care of you — and I want you to love me and care for me. I want to have problems to discuss with you — I want to do little projects with you. I never thought until just now that we can do that. What should we do. We started to learn to make clothes together — or learn Chinese — or getting a movie projector. Can't I do something now? No. I am alone without you and you were the "idea-woman" and general instigator of all our wild adventures.

When you were sick you worried because you could not give me something that you wanted to and thought I needed. You needn’t have worried. Just as I told you then there was no real need because I loved you in so many ways so much. And now it is clearly even more true — you can give me nothing now yet I love you so that you stand in my way of loving anyone else — but I want you to stand there. You, dead, are so much better than anyone else alive.

I know you will assure me that I am foolish and that you want me to have full happiness and don't want to be in my way. I'll bet you are surprised that I don't even have a girlfriend (except you, sweetheart) after two years. But you can't help it, darling, nor can I — I don't understand it, for I have met many girls and very nice ones and I don't want to remain alone — but in two or three meetings they all seem ashes. You only are left to me. You are real.

My darling wife, I do adore you.

I love my wife. My wife is dead.

Rich.

Tonight Show: Do Not Read

 

Ennu Ninte Moideen

 

Rain. Sound of thunder. Mellow background music. Slow motion. These seem to be the tools of choice of today's filmmakers. These were the first scenes of the 2015 Malayalam movie Ennu Ninte Moideen. I slept through most of the movie. But critics and viewers are calling it the best made Love story of the last decade of Malayalam movies. What really sets this movie apart is that it is based on a true-life incident. Most of the story depicted actually took place in Kerala during 1950s to 1970s (I think). The lead pair depict real life characters from different religions who fall in love the 'traditional' way, via pen and paper love letters. But are forced by society to stay apart for more than two decades. Sadly, there is no happy ending for them. Some say that the best love stories are the ones where they are unable to live together.

Honestly, this is an honest, well made movie. Made from the heart. Melodrama. It depicts life and society in Kerala just after Indian independence. The lead pair is excellent. The visuals are awesome. The music is perfect, and different. And all the characters depicted are believable and relatable.

But there is not much content. More than half of the movie is in slow-motion. Played at normal speed, the movie would be over in one hour. But the director decides to carry us slowly across 20 years, and there is slow motion of rain, river, water, sand, …This was about the time I began dozing off to sleep.

This could be Prithviraj's best role (choice of movie) till date, but I personally like his work from 'Ayalum Njanum Thammil' best. And who would have thought that R J Sarah from Bangalore Days could play such a polar opposite character ? The casting of this movie is perfect, thank goodness they did not include any of those sidekick actors.

On hindsight, it is remarkable how far the little state of Kerala has changed. Today, a couple from different religions would face very little problems if they decided to live together. Much of society has gotten over the 'stigma' of 'love marriage'. I see a lot of couples from diverse religions getting married, sharing pics on social media. Today's youngsters would have no idea how difficult things were 50 years ago.

Origin of the name "Google"

 

 

From time to time I read or hear stories of the origin of the search engine and company name "Google" that are incorrect, which prompts me to write this brief account, based on my understanding of the genesis of the name. The source of my information is my friends and colleagues from Wing 3B of the Gates Computer Science Building at Stanford University, where Google was born.

In 1996, Larry Page and Sergey Brin called their initial search engine "BackRub," named for its analysis of the web's "back links." Larry's office was in room 360 of the Gates CS Building, which he shared with several other graduate students, including Sean Anderson, Tamara Munzner, and Lucas Pereira. In 1997, Larry and his officemates discussed a number of possible new names for the rapidly improving search technology. Sean recalls the final brainstorming session as occurring one day during September of that year.

Sean and Larry were in their office, using the whiteboard, trying to think up a good name - something that related to the indexing of an immense amount of data. Sean verbally suggested the word "googolplex," and Larry responded verbally with the shortened form, "googol" (both words refer to specific large numbers). Sean was seated at his computer terminal, so he executed a search of the Internet domain name registry database to see if the newly suggested name was still available for registration and use. Sean is not an infallible speller, and he made the mistake of searching for the name spelled as "google.com," which he found to be available. Larry liked the name, and within hours he took the step of registering the name "google.com" for himself and Sergey (the domain name registration record dates from September 15, 1997).